The left's rush to re-write history

The American left smells blood in the water. The monster racist who shot up a church in Charleston apparently had a thing for the Confederate flag so now all things Confederate are suddenly under assault. But it didn’t stop there. Louis Farrakhan promoted the idea of taking down the American flag because it had flown over slavery far longer than the battle flag of the Confederacy.

Then a couple of commentators on CNN floated the idea of destroying the Jefferson Memorial because he owned slaves. The mayor of Memphis wants to dig up the bones of Nathan Bedford Forrest and even the car from the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard has been banned. 

This, of course, is all coming from the left, where political correctness flourishes and common sense is dead.

For the record, I understand the disdain for the Confederate flag and the Confederacy. It was a dark time in our history but it is still just that: our history. Memorials to dead Confederates were erected in the years after the Civil War as a way of preserving that history. The left should be glad those memorials exist. Each time an American citizen visits one it always sparks a discussion of the war, its meaning, the lives lost on both sides, and the lessons we’ve learned. Not one of these memorials is trying to white wash history. They are merely markers in time. Sign posts of the mindset of the day and reminders of just how far we have come in a relatively short period.

If the time has come to tear down every reminder of anything ugly in America’s history we certainly have a chore ahead of us. Let’s start with the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford was a well-known anti-semite who heavily funded the Nazis in the run-up to World War II. So much so that Hitler himself bestowed upon the esteemed automaker the highest honor a non-citizen of Germany could receive. 

While we’re plucking every Ford product from the roads we should dissolve the Ford Foundation which was established by Henry Ford’s son, Edsel, in honor of his father. Forget the work they’ve done to help people in at least 50 countries. Surely we can’t let stand a foundation funded with the dirty money of a Jew-hater and Nazi supporter.

If Thomas Jefferson’s granite memorial must be destroyed because of his ownership of slaves then we cannot allow to stand his living legacy, The Democratic Party, which traces its roots to the Democratic-Republic Party founded by Jefferson. It morphed into the modern-day Democratic Party and Andrew Jackson, another slave owner and well-known Indian killer, was its first president. The Democratic Party also gave us the KKK, Jim Crow laws and segregation. Democrats still celebrate their ugly legacy with their annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners.

The Republicans, on the other hand, celebrate with Lincoln Day dinners, honoring the guy who freed the slaves, but, of course, somehow they are racists.

And speaking of the Klan, let’s erase any vestige of the late Senator Robert Byrd while we’re at it. He was a Klansman who fought and voted against the Civil Rights Act. So did his colleague and fellow segregationist, Al Gore, Sr., yet there are buildings named after him.

Because the American media and corporate elites are running scared, the American left is behaving like ISIS, only without the beheadings. They want to topple anything and everything they find the least bit offensive. In the process it might be their own icons that hit the ground the hardest.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.